Incubation.

Watching. Listening. Studying, thinking.

For several years now I've been circling around this question of Wisdom.

Living in a culture that seems to be growing shallower by the day, I'm driven to go deeper and deeper to hold to what is truly meaningful.

I find myself swinging between what appear to be polarities, alternative directions, each pulling with equal force. I say appear to be because in my heart of hearts I know there is a synthesis waiting, a common theme tying the forces together in action.

From one side, I've heard the siren song of the Older Ones among us, the voices of experience, learning and perspective so totally neglected in American life today. There is no mistaking the calling I've received to pay attention to these voices, learn from our elders, honor the words they have to share. And to do so in a way that amplifies and broadcasts them to the world. We are a nation in desperate need of a longer-term vision of our place in the world.

Yet I have vivid memories of one specific aspect of my transition away from my earlier career: the liquidation of a library accumulated through 25 years of practice in psychology.

In the marketplace, that library was essentially worthless. Books that I had spent $50, $75 for were valued at $1.50, $2, if anything at all. More often than not, when approaching any of a dozen used bookstores in the Boulder area I was told simply that the books were not needed, not wanted, and would best be disposed of by recycling or donating to the Salvation Army or a library in some small town far away from a city.

What were valued were books on Art. Classics, contemporaries, art history and art technique, beautifully illustrated and pulp-paper, all were uniformly marketable. I was so shocked by the difference in prices offered that I quickly reexamined my decision to sell them, and opted to hold on to that part of my collection.

The indelible impression I gained from that experience, repeated over many months and many encounters, convinced me of the lasting power of the arts as an expression of the human situation. And the brief and fleeting existence of non-fiction tomes purporting to define this or that aspect of human existence or behavior.

Here's where the synthesis I seek appears to lie: listen to the stories of the Wise among us, search for patterns and linkages, and transform them into compelling works of art that will live beyond us all.

How exactly will that take form?